Chapter 21: They Don’t Gain Another Yard. You Blitz All Night!
If they cross the line of scrimmage, I'm gonn’a take every last one of you out!
We begin this chapter with another look at “sharing a bed with a toddler”.
More like sharing a bed with a hurricane.
On our most recent trip to Texas, Sarah reached the point where she just asked to sleep on the floor.
I do believe that the boy has worked out a very effective strategy here.
It was the 4th of July, so we got decked out in our finest patriotic gear and went out to celebrate that most American of institutions football (or “handegg”, if you are European).
I always liked “Hand-orb”, as descriptions go.
It truth, it’s just our version of Gladiatorial Games.
We are Rome (and in entirely too many ways)
Excellent counter-argument:
Good point. (and for comparison, I suppose “egg” does work better in this context)
Depending on your view, this is either a great sport featuring incredible strength, athletic feats, and teamwork, or it’s a brutal barbaric game that maims people for life.
And the correct answer would be:
Personally, I love football and enjoy it immensely, but must confess that the more we read about the effects of the sport on people long-term, the more I wonder about the game’s future. At the very least, I’m glad all this research is being done, because then at least if someone chooses to play this sport, he goes in with eyes wide open.
Nice assessment.
Green Bay is the home of the Green Bay Packers football team, the third-oldest franchise in the National Football League.
And the only one if those three to still have both their original name and be located in their original home city.
the city owns the team, so they won’t be going anywhere.
I always thought this tidbit was right amazing.
The rest of the franchises are pretty much the playthings of obscenely wealthy folk.
Some of them play generally nice, others like to threaten and even extort from their hosts.
All in all, I like the Green Bay model better, but what I think don’t matter much, now do it?
The home of the Packers is Lambeau Field, a historic venue built in 1957 and probably the only professional football stadium left in America that carries the same kind of cultural significance as historic baseball stadiums such as Wrigley Field or Fenway Park.
Hummm…
Nope, I can’t think of another current one that has any history.
The wait list for season tickets has well over 80,000 names on it, including Barry, who should be able to purchase his tickets in about 400 years or so.
long but for me personally being able to buy even one regular season game ticket to any NFL event currently has a wait time roughly equal to infinity.
If you’re a football fan at all, you’ve already thought of a reverent, dulcet-toned NFL Films announcer describing the “Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field”
Which is both incorrect and illogical…
But does make for great story telling.
But then again, the name: “Sahara Desert” is equally illogical but prevents virtually no one from accepting it as common parlance.
Being located in a relatively small community, the football stadium dwarfs everything around it. It can be seen for a couple of miles while driving into the city
Kind’a like the presence that medieval castles imposed upon the landscape.
and has the same odd feel as
Disneyland in the sense that there’s a world-famous site surrounded by incredibly mundane houses, fast-food joints, etc.
Harbor Boulevard here we come!
And, of course, there’s the Lombardi quote most commonly used by Eagles fans: “What the he—is going on out there?!”
And then there’s one specifically for the long suffering fans of many a team:
“At many a moment on many a day, I am convinced that pro football must be a game for madmen…
and I must be one of them.”
yet my only note for Mr. Lambeau is to acknowledge that he is immortally enshrined giving the “pull my finger” gesture.
There is no greater honor.
I always enjoy it when I get to see something in real life that I’ve come to know through television…
Agreed…
It offers a new perspective.
Sometimes intensified, bit also at times more tempered.
Here’s the whole crew. Man, we have a lot of kids.
Great picture though.
Hey, add a couple more and you can start a baseball team.
A side cabinet displayed “Super Bowl rings” something with which Eagles fans are not familiar.
But we’re not bitter.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more…
Here, the guide demonstrated the terrific acoustics of the stadium bowl. He said you can stand up and yell from this spot and get a perfect echo reverberating around the stadium. To prove it, he encouraged us all to stand and yell, “Go Pack Go!”
Yeah… ummm…
I’m just gonn’a have to take his word for it here.
Still, I outsmarted him. I shouted “Og Kcap Og!”
He did supply you with the opening here.
Disney would call such a thing “magical”
I was ready to tackle somebody. So I caught Scotty with a flying forearm shiver.
Sooooo…
Mark Happened?
It’s always neat to walk out at field level at a pro sports stadium, to get an idea of what it’s like to be on the field. You don’t get this view as an average fan.
Oddly, when I’ve been on a pro ball field, they surprise me as being smaller then I expect.
At least that was my perception of Charlotte and Indianapolis.
(and the old Orange Bowl, but that was a very long time ago)
With that, the tour ended and we were forced to trudge our way up the bleachers, back to being common peons once more. No crowd noise pumping us up here.
And worse, no elevator this time.
No, seriously, dude…what are you doing?
I believe the term is “Happening”
So we eventually abandoned that plan and headed to our new home away from home, Culver’s. Everyone seemed happy with that choice.
Cheese… Malt… Grease…
What not to love.
So, yes: we crashed a total stranger’s birthday party. Not awkward at all.
All in a day’s work.
Nice they all got along so well.
Whoops!!
